Song-ography

April 2016 - Toronto ON

The Toronto CBC station ran a songwriting contest called Song in the 6ix for an anthem for Toronto. The song had to include "the 6ix" or "song in the 6ix".

The winner was announced March 1 - Britney Davis singing From the Six.

I was puzzled by the expression "The Six" as i had never heard that used to describe Toronto.


Then we were walking around town recently and came across this shop with this sign.

Now I was really intrigued so did some Googling.

Toronto gets its nickname the “six” because the city that is now Toronto was originally broken up into six different cities: Toronto, Scarborough, North York, York, East York, and Etobicoke.

In 1998, the six cities were combined by the government of Ontario as a cost saving measure. After the regrouping of these cities, Toronto has become the 4th largest city in North America behind Mexico City, New York, and Los Angeles. Even though these cities are all formally a part of Toronto, they are still often referred to as their original names. One reason for this is that there are a lot of duplicated street names from when the cities were separate, so your address and location is more identifiable by using the old city names.




In July 2014, the rapper Drake announced the title of his newest album Views from the 6, and this started a huge speculation behind the meaning of the name and his influence. This quickly led to the discovery of the term’s connection to his hometown Toronto, and so everyone assumed this was Drake’s attempt at creating a new nickname.


The term six is more widely used now and even found plastered on buildings in the city with graffiti.

Song-ography is hosted by You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, a fantastic photographer and funny lady.